(Updating)

Happy iOS 11 day! Today is the day that Apple’s latest and greatest operating system for iPhones and iPads is released and millions of early adopters flood Apple’s servers to upgrade to the latest operating system for their device.

More so than any other iOS update in recent years, iOS 11 is actually a pretty significant upgrade. In addition to some pretty spiffy new features, iOS 11 changes how it works under the hood.

Going forward, older apps which haven’t been upgraded in a few years probably will not work in iOS 11. Ever. The reason is that the operating system will no longer run older apps written for a 32-bit architecture. Now, all iOS apps must run in a 64-bit environment.

iOS has been warning us for years. First in iOS 9, the warning about slowing down your iPhone would display when opening a 32-bit app. Then in iOS 10 the warning became more ominous. We were told that soon 32-bit apps would no longer work on an iPhone at all. Today, the time has come.

Bottom line is, some of your older photo apps now will not run anymore. These are photo apps that have been abandoned by their developers and have not been updated in years. Most of them you probably won’t miss, but there are a few that I still use occasionally.

If you are still using iOS 10, to see which apps won’t make the upgrade on your iPhone, go to the Settings app > General > About > Applications. There, you’ll see a list of apps on your phone which will stop working if you update to iOS 11.

I’ve compiled a list of the photo apps that I still had on my iPhone that will no longer work once I update to iOS 11.

  • BananaCam
  • Lo-Mob
  • EXIF-fi
  • Photogene 4
  • NoIMGData
  • KitCam
  • AutoStitch Panorama
  • You Gotta See This
  • Lomora
  • Infinicam
  • CameraBag (the original. CameraBag 2 is fine)
  • Osmo Leaker
  • Tiffen Photo fx (Updated, new developer. Now called Digital Film Tools)
  • Monotone
  • Real Halftone
  • PhotoFusion
  • ColorStrokes
  • ClassicPan
  • Popsicolor (Updated. Yay!)
  • Warhol
  • PixelateTool
  • Deco Sketch (Updated)
  • Popkick
  • Bracket Mode
  • HDR Fusion
  • FocalLab
  • TiltShiftGenerator 2
  • Hueless
  • Huemore
  • AntiCrop
  • BlurFX
  • JuxtaCam
  • Dynamic Light
  • PuddingCam
  • Laminar
  • Adobe Ideas
  • PicGrunger
  • OldPhotoPRO
  • Film Lab
  • TTV Studio Pro
  • Vintagio (video app)
  • Stop Motion Recorder
  • SwankoLab
  • Koloid
  • Super 8

Many of these apps I haven’t used in years, but I have not found suitable replacements for several of these. For instance, Osmo Leaker is still one of the best light leak photo apps ever. I’ll really miss the look of misskiwi’s excellent film recreations in ClassicPan. And there are few photo apps that can match the look of Tiffen Photo fx glass filter recreations.

This list is not complete. These is just the photo apps that I had left over on my phone. There are probably a lot more photo apps that I’ve since deleted that are still in use by many iPhoneographers that aren’t on this list. Let us know in the comments below if you find any others that are on this list.

You can try to find a replacement app in the App Store. A lot of excellent photo apps have been released over the past couple of years. Or, if you really can’t live without your favorite older app, you can always hold off on updating to iOS 11 for now.

Remember, once you update to iOS 11, essentially it’s a one-way trip. There is no downgrading back to iOS 10 (There is, but it’s difficult. And Apple will probably turn that capability off within a month.)

I’m holding off updating for now. I’m waiting to read reports on how well iOS 11 will run on my particular device. For instance, in the past major iOS updates have been battery killers. I’m going to wait for an update or two to let someone else discover the bugs.